DHS alumni get jobs

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Several top-ranking Homeland Security Department officials who recently left the department to pursue private sector opportunities have joined either technology, law, public affairs or other organizations. One has even announced he will run for governor.

Over the weekend, Asa Hutchinson, who was the undersecretary for the Border and Transportation Security (BTS) Directorate until resigning March 1, said he would seek the Arkansas governor’s office in 2006.

In the meantime, Hutchinson, a former three-term congressman from that state, joined Washington-based Venable to head the law firm’s homeland security practice. He will also serve on the board of Saflink, a Bellevue, Wash.-based biometric and smart card company.

Patrick Hughes, a retired lieutenant general who was assistant secretary for information analysis at the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate and later head of that organization, announced last week that he joined L-3 Communications as vice president of homeland security. The New York City-based company provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, communications systems, aircraft modernization and other services.

Jack Johnson, who was the department’s chief security officer, joined Pricewaterhouse Coopers as a managing director of its Washington federal practice, while Stewart Verdery, the department’s former assistant secretary for BTS policy and planning, later this month will join the Washington, D.C.-based government affairs firm of Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti.